Mother charged after 5-year-old walks to pond alone: ‘I know what he’s capable of’

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The summer day started normally for Karyann Parkinson.

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As the mother tells it, she was weeks away from giving birth to her fifth child when she took a walk with her son Sam through their gated community in Williamsburg, Virginia. They passed by a couple of ponds and crossed the street about six times, she said. Sam, 5, zoomed ahead of her and back on his bike, with the goose feathers he likes to collect from the ponds’ edges sticking out of his backpack.

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When they returned home that day on June 5, Sam wanted to go back out to look for more feathers, she said.

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What followed has brought tears, sleepless nights and a court case for the family, Parkinson said in an interview with The Washington Post. It has also sparked debate over when and where kids can do things on their own, and at what age.

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Parkinson, who has a bachelor’s degree in family science and graduated from William & Mary Law School in May, said she allowed her son to do the roughly half-mile walk by himself because she and her husband, Dallin, believe it’s important for children to “encounter reasonable risks, to do anything that they feel confident doing within safe parameters.” And Sam knows how to safely cross the street, get back home or ask a neighbor for help because she taught him, Parkinson said.

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“I know what he’s capable of,” Parkinson said.

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She said she started making lunch, and, after 20 to 30 minutes, there was a knock at the door. On the other side was Sam, visibly shaken, with a handful of feathers, she said. Behind him stood a security guard, who told her a neighbor saw her son outside alone and was so concerned they called security, she said.

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Parkinson said she insisted her son was safe and had the right to walk through his neighborhood by himself. But the guard said she had broken the law and called the police, she said.

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When asked for comment, the neighborhood security office referred The Post to the HOA, which could not be reached.

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On June 18, about two weeks after police first arrived at Parkinson’s doorstep, they returned with a warrant for her arrest, she said. Parkinson was charged and convicted last month of contributing to the delinquency of a minor, according to online court records.

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A Williamsburg and James City County Juvenile and Domestic Relations District Court judge sentenced her to six months of suspended jail time, after she declined a withheld finding that would have forced her to agree the evidence was sufficient for guilt and accept a pending misdemeanor charge, according to Williamsburg Commonwealth’s Attorney Nate Green.

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“That would have been saying that what I had done was a crime, and … that would’ve violated my principles and my convictions as a parent,” Parkinson said. “And I think it also would have let down other parents who need to know that normal childhood experiences are not a crime.”